


97 Days

by PaperKatla



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Gen, Government Experimentation, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Medical Experimentation, PTSD, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-20 01:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7384918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperKatla/pseuds/PaperKatla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first thing he noticed when he woke up was that they’d taken his sneakers..."</p><p>After being snatched from his lab by Eiling and his men, Cisco expects his rescue would be coming soon. But with Barry gone AWOL and the city and police still reeling from the singularity disaster, it soon becomes apparent that his rescue may take long than he thought. So, while Eiling continues to pick him apart, Cisco must learn to use his burgeoning meta-powers to survive his captivity alone.</p><p>Set between season 1 and 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FAQs  
> Q: Why are you so mean to Cisco?  
> A: Blame my "Stargate SG-1" beginnings. It's fun picking on your favs. 
> 
> Q: What's "La Gozadera"?  
> A: It's a really fun, super catchy song by Genta de Zona ft. Marc Anthony and I recommend it. Don't speak Spanish? Cool. Neither do I. It's still a fun song. 
> 
> Q: When will part 2 be out?  
> A: It's in the works. Keep asking, I'll keep you updated.

 

* * *

 

They snatched him from the lab space he’d borrowed from an old university colleague. He’d been working late, like always these days. He never heard the beeping of the make-shift security system over the reggaeton he had blasting on the equally make-shift sound system. The men poured into the lab to the bizarre soundtrack of Gente de Zona’s “La Gozadera” and, for a moment, Cisco felt embarrassed that they’d seen his exaggerated dancing—and then the tranq dart hit him.

\---

The first thing he noticed when he woke up was that they’d taken his sneakers. They’d been his favorite—the pair of red hightops which had cost him way too much. They’d also taken his clothes. The grey patient scrubs he was now in were baggy and thin. It was somewhere around this time he realized he was in trouble.

“Well, fuck,” he said, and got up.

His cell was approximately six feet wide and ten feet long. He used his own feet as a measuring tool and repeated the task over and over and over again until it became a form of pacing. A small army cot was crammed against one wall, the feet facing the heavy, metal door, and there was a toilet in the opposite corner. Everything was painted plain white, which made every scuff and stain stand out in the fluorescent lighting. There was signs that someone had put their dirty feet on the wall while lying on the cot, scuffs from boots and shoes on the floor, and—most ominously—a smear of blood that someone had tried and failed to scrub away on the doorframe. He poked around the cot first, peeling back the blankets on the bed and shaking them out, before lifting up the mattress—nothing. The baseboard under the bed revealed a woman’s earring in the shape of a small, gold star, and the corner behind the toilet offered a slightly soggy green hair tie with a red hair still wrapped around it. He set his discoveries on top of the cot’s blanket and stared at them, trying to figure out how an earring and a hair tie might help him escape.

It was then he noticed the little hatch marks carved into the wall. He counted them carefully. Seven sets of five, and three lone ones. Thirty-eight. Someone had taken the time to carve thirty eight hatch marks into the wall next to the bed. Leaning closer, he noted a name carved a little below the marks, right around the eyeline of someone who was laying on their side on the cot. The name had been carved with care, with a little star at the end of it— _Margot_.

Sighing, he laid back down on the bed, holding onto the earring and the hair tie and thought about Margot—who had once put her red hair back in a pony tail with a green hair tie, and wore gold earrings in the shape of stars—who had made thirty eight hatch marks on the cell of a wall. A little ways up the wall, closer to the corner, he started to carve his own name in blocky letters. It was a while until he was satisfied with the look of it next to Margot’s tallies.

_Francisco. I_

They’d taken his watch with his shoes and clothes, so he could only assume he’d been gone a few hours. If it’d been long enough for the next morning to roll around, it was possible that Joe already noticed he hadn’t shown up for work. Joe would then call Barry and Caitlin and they’d track him down. He’d be rescued in no time. He just had to wait.

Closing his hand around Margot’s leftovers, Cisco lay back on the cot, stared at the ceiling of the cell. He tried to remember the lyrics to “La Gozadera” to kill the time, and when he remembered them, he tried to remember the lyrics to Aventura’s “Obsesion”, and then Pulp’s “Babies”, and then Martika’s “Toy Soldiers”, and then “El Ultimo Beso”. He did this until he ran out of songs he could think of, and his stomach was growling and there was a sinking feeling in his chest and a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Dante that said, “No one is coming for you.”

He told that voice to shut up and returned to mumble-singing “La Gozadera”.

\---

He hadn’t realized he was asleep until he woke up again to the sensation of his stomach gurgling, clearly telling him, “The last thing you ate was a bean burrito with sriracha sauce, idiot!” Groaning he rolled over onto his side and stared at the toilet in the corner. It was dark in the cell, the only light was the soft, green glow of some auxiliary lighting slipping underneath the door from the corridor.

“Ugh,” he hissed at his belly. “Not now.” He was really resisting using the toilet. There was a small peep-hole in the door and anyone could walk by and look in! And, yes, Cisco realized that someone seeing him doing his business wasn’t the worst thing in the world, especially since he was already kidnapped and being held in a dark, cold cell, but a man had to have some self-respect. He could hold it.

He tried shifting around, seeing if it turned on any lights in his cell, but when nothing changed he sighed, and plucked Margot’s hair tie from his closed fist. There was no mirror in the room, but he took a few moments to braid his hair and tie it off by feel alone, just to give his hands something to do. Carefully, he hid Margot’s earring under the mattress, sat cross-legged on the bed and waited.

His stomach gurgled louder than before. “No way, Jose!” he told it. “We are holding out until we can escape or be rescued.”

An hour later, he gave in, feeling ashamed and dirty as he hurriedly flushed the toiler with his bare foot, before realizing for the first time there was no sink. “Oh, ew, c’mon, guys, hygiene!” Frustrated, he started kicking at the door. “Hey, how ‘bout a wet wipe in here, assholes! Maybe some water? Huh?”

His banging was met with the shifting of the peep-hole and a clipped order, “Stand back!” The door opened, and before he could think about rushing anyone, a taser was shoved towards him, forcing him to back up into the room as an orderly dressed in white scrubs walked in, followed by a petite woman in a lab coat and sensible shoes. In her hand, she carried a small plastic case.

“Good morning, Mr. Ramon,” said the woman. She handed him a package of wet wipes, like she’d been expecting the issue to arise, and he kept an eye on her as he tore the package open. “My name is Dr. Perlemann, I’ve been asked to make a physical report of your condition.”

“I’m fine,” Cisco snapped, throwing the dirty wet wipe in the toilet. “Be even better if I knew where I was.”

Dr. Perlemann smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t give you that information.” She set down the case on the end of the cot and opened it. Inside, Cisco noted there were syringes and specimen jars, along with a few other basic medical supplies and a small notebook and pen. “Perhaps you can help me, though, by providing a few samples.”

Cisco snorted. “I do not give samples to evil scientists.”

“I don’t need your permission, Mr. Ramon,” said Dr. Perlemann, “but it would be easier if you agreed to it.” The orderly stepped forward, then, crowding him against the cot until he was forced to sit down. “I can have Mike restrain you, if needed.”

Cisco shook his head. A voice in his head that sounded like Joe whispered, “Patience. Keep your head. Pay attention.”

Apparently, Dr. Perlemann took his silence as resistance, though, because suddenly Mike and another orderly who had appeared from nowhere that Cisco could see were holding him down on the bed, yanking his arm straight as he kicked and bucked, heart hammering, breathing picking up. He felt the reflex of covering up his heart with his hand kick in, but his other hand was being held down as well. “Let go! Let me go! You can’t do this! This is illegal! Help! Someone, help!”

Dr. Perlemann didn’t even do the nice “one-two-three-poke” thing that Caitlin did whenever she’d drawn his blood. Just jabbed the needle into his vein and began taking samples.

“Let go,” he begged Mike and the other orderly, his breath coming even faster than ever before. “Please, I can’t breathe.” His hand jerked as he fought against the men. He didn’t even think he would want to escape now. He just wanted to put his hand over his heart. He needed to put his hand over his heart. It was stupid, he knew it was stupid, but it was all he knew how to do.

It seemed like forever until they finally released him and he immediately turned onto his side, faced the wall and Margot’s hatch marks. His hands clamped over his heart as he gasped for breath. Blood dripped from his arm on the sheets.

“Thank you for the samples, Mr. Ramon,” Dr. Perlemann said, packing the vials into her case.

“Go to hell,” Cisco wheezed. Mike the orderly laughed, as he and the others walked out and locked the door behind them. The door was too thick to hear them walk away, so Cisco waited, trying to calm his breathing, to work up the nerve to pull his hand away from his chest. Eventually, he managed to pull one hand away, until he could reach under the mattress to find Margot’s earring.

His fingers closed around the tiny, gold star, and his vision went blue.

He was Margot, and she was him, lying on a gurney. He was panicking—she was panicking, her breath coming in short pants as Mike the orderly pushed the gurney down the corridor. It was a small, grey hall that lead into a small, grey room. She was afraid of it. “Please!” Margot begged—he begged—“Please I haven’t done anything. I promise!”

The vision flickered and suddenly they were strapping her to a metal table and she was screaming. He was screaming. He could see her face reflected in glass of an observation window, her mouth open wide, eyes wider, and face red as she shrieked and pleaded.

Out of the corner of Margot’s eye, a man stepped heavily out of the shadows, his boots clapping against the tiled floor.

Cisco gasped, and threw the earring against the wall.

“Oh,” he said, staring at his empty hand. “Oh.”

\---

The orderlies reentered a few hours later, taser held out to stop Cisco from approaching them. Mike the orderly dropped a plate of food on the bed and setting a glass of water on the floor. “Eat up, sweetheart,” he said, laughing. Cisco waited until they closed the cell door again before he flipped them off.

The food was bland—mashed potatoes, lukewarm green bean, and a few chicken nuggets—but it had been approximately 48 hours since he’d eaten last, and he had finished off most of the potatoes before he had even realized. He had never been more grateful for food. If Mike had come back, Cisco was fairly certain he would kiss him. He was still hungry when the food was gone, but he resisted licking the plate for dignity’s sake. He then chugged the water, shaking it get every last droplet of water out.

So, they fed him. Good. It meant that they needed him alive for a moment. Apparently for medical experiments, which was terrifying. But it didn’t matter. They would notice he was gone. He would be rescued. Soon.

He stared at Margot’s hatch marks on the wall, next to his own. She had probably waited for someone to save her, too. She had said she’d never hurt anyone. She probably had family, friends. Slowly, he slunk across the room, reaching his hand out carefully towards her tiny, star-shaped earring. Drawing a huge breath, he closed his eyes, braced himself and touched it gently.

Nothing. He opened one eye. He was definitely touching it, but he wasn’t seeing anything. There was no vision, no flashes of blue. He touched it again. And again. Nothing.

Carefully, he wrapped his fingers around it and brought it back to the cot with him. He cradled the earring in his hand. She had probably liked the earrings. He remembered the brief glimpse he’d had of her, reflected in the observation window. She’d been petite, freckled. She looked like the kind of girl who might have done yoga in the morning and gone backpacking with her dog on the weekends. Someone earthy. Or maybe she was book smart like him—nose shoved deep within the pages of her text book. She had obviously been meticulous, and orderly, by how evenly she had drawn her hatch marks, and how perfect each of the rows were. She had established a frightening routine inside the cell. For thirty-eight days she had lived where he’d lived, ate where he’d ate, slept where he slept.

He tucked the earring back under the mattress. He pulled his hair out of the braid to twist it into a bun instead. He sat and waited, wondering what would happen next.

Looking down at the plate, he decided that he would lick it, just in case.

\---

On what Cisco was pretty sure was day five, they finally took him out of the cell. He pretended to be weaker than he felt after only one meal a day, letting them get comfortable with half-dragging him down the corridor, waiting until they put away the taser, before he threw his first punch. It was messy, but struck home, causing the orderly to hit the wall hard, spitting blood, and swearing furiously. Mike the orderly was bigger though, and threw him back while the first guy stumbled back to his feet.

“You little freak! I’m gonna—” The first orderly lurched towards Cisco, face red and busted lip dripping blood.

Right, so here’s the deal: Cisco Ramon can fight. Because you don’t spend half your life being the nerd that even the nerds shit on without getting beat up a few times. And you don’t get beat up a few times before you start thinking “this is getting old” and join a gym. And get some kickboxing lessons. And then there was that one self-defense course that was filled mostly with women, but, whatever, now he knew what to do if someone went for his hair. So, when the orderly grabbed onto the bun he’d arranged on his head with Margot’s hair tie, he was able to knee that guy in the face a couple of times before he felt a syringe slide into his neck.

\---

He woke up strapped to a doctor’s table. The room was flooded with fluorescent light from the overhead lights and the number of lamps on hinges all pointed directly at him. He fought briefly, yanking at the straps holding him down. “Hey, yo! This ain’t kosher!” he snapped, and jumped when someone chuckled in reply. His mind flickered to the vision he’d had of a man stepping out of the darkness in heavy boots and his heart sped up. “Hey, how about you introduce yourself instead of creeping in the shadows, pal?”

Calmly, General Wade Eiling stepped into his line of sight, a small manila file folder held loosely in one hand. “Good to see you again, Mr. Ramon.”

“Eiling, I knew I recognized your foul stench,” he said. “Now, how about quitting this highly illegal charade and letting me go?”

“’fraid I can’t do that, son.” He started to circle the table, his heavy boots beating against the tile floor. Cisco moved his head to follow his movement and gasped. There, over his left shoulder, was the observation window he had seen before, only now his own face was reflected back at him. “The US government requires your cooperation, Mr. Ramon,” Eiling said. “America is under attack from terrorists and metahumans alike, and we need every able-bodied man, every scientist—” He spat out the word, like he found it particularly offensive. “—to help defend our country.”

Cisco heaved a huge, exaggerated sigh. “Y sigue con el mismo tiki-tiki ese. Listen, pal, I’m not helping you do anything. Now, let me go, you have no right to hold me here!”

Casually, Eiling opened the file he held in his hand. “Unlawful imprisonment, aiding a criminal, building them weapons—”

“Under duress!” he snapped. “You can’t keep me here. My friends will find me.”

Chuffing out a laugh, Eiling shook his head. Reaching out, he turned off one of the lamps over the operating table. “What friends? Dr. Wells is gone.” Click. Another light. “Mr. Allen and Dr. Snow haven’t spoken to you in months.” Click. One more light went off. The room was darker now, illuminated only by the overhead fluorescents. “You have no one.”

“I work for the police, genius,” he said, feeling less and less brave. “Cops notice things like their coworkers going missing.”

“CCPD has no authority over the US Government.” Snapping the folder shut, Eiling sighed like Cisco was some trying, argumentative child that he was trying to convince to see the “grown-up” side of things. “Let me be straight-forward with you, Mr. Ramon. We know that you are a metahuman. We’ve been watching you for a long time now. We know about the visions. We believe that powers such as yours would be a great asset to this country. And that’s what you can be—cooperate, and you’re an asset, but fail to cooperate, and, well, you know what’s in the file.”

Panicked, Cisco shook his head. “I’m not a metahuman.”

“Our bloodwork shows otherwise,” Eiling replied. “And, now, we’d like to see if we can’t provoke a little demonstration from you.” He leapt forward, slamming his hands down on the metal table Cisco was strapped to. Cisco screamed, heartbeat skyrocketing until it felt like it was being shredded again, hammering against his ribcage. He gasped for breath, eyes closed, hands working frantically, making repeated aborted efforts to put a hand on his chest, to protect his heart.

Eiling smiled at the reaction. “We’re going to test a few theories now,” he said, stepping back. “So, we’ll speak later, Mr. Ramon. Goodbye.”

He walked out.

The overhead lights turned off.

Cisco was left alone in the dark.

\---

The minutes ticked by slowly. Despite how silent and empty the dark room clearly was, Cisco couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still being watched. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck. He focused on his breathing, keeping it steady and even. It sped up without his say-so, leaving him feeling powerless. He heart beat hard and fast, like it was trying to ram its way out of his chest. He was so tired and scared and hungry.

He waited impatiently. Any minute now Barry would rush through the door, a blur of red and gold, and rescue him. They would expose Eiling together. Everyone would be safe and happy, and he would seriously look into therapy.

The door slammed open after what seemed like an eternity—Cisco jumped. The sound of shoes hitting the tile floors were steady, but not the same heavy sound of Eiling’s boots. They were lighter, quicker—a woman’s loafer. A light switched on, and Dr. Perlemann stepped into the circle of light. “We’re going to be a play a little game, Mr. Ramon,” she said, holding up a small, blue ball. “This ball has a mate in the building. I want you to tell me where it is.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” he said. His voice sounded pleading even to him. God, was this all it took to weaken him? A few days in a cell and a few hours alone in the dark? “Please. I don’t control the visions.”

Dr. Perlemann’s mouth pinched together into a sour expression. “We’ll see,” she said, and shoved ball into his hand.

His vision brightened with a flash before abruptly cutting to blue. He blinked, and looked down at his hands. The ones in the vision were free and empty. He looked up and blinked—and he saw the ball. It wasn’t in some other room, some distant part of the place where he was imprisoned; it was sitting on a chair with its mate, in the same room he was in now. “She’s seizing!” someone shouted, and Cisco looked up. Doctors and orderlies rushed around the room, paper masks hiding their faces, blood spattering their scrubs. Margot was lying on the table, convulsing; her eyes were rolled back in her head, her muscles taut and straining against the straps that held her down. The whole table shook with her as Dr. Perlemann injected a viscous, yellow liquid into her IV port. On the chair, one of the balls abruptly caught fire, the soft foam sparking and fizzing.

Cisco gasped as he came back to himself. He dropped the ball, listened to it tumble onto the floor of the dark room. “What did you do to her?” he asked, making another aborted effort to cover his heart with his hand. Dr. Perlemann’s frown deepened. “She was a metahuman. You experimented on her.”

“People with that sort of power need to be monitored,” Dr. Perlemann replied, coldly. “If they choose to fight against us, then we’ll fight against them. Metahumans are becoming this country’s greatest terrorist threat.”

“I’m not a terrorist.”

Dr. Perlemann smiled. “Then the US government appreciates your continued cooperation in the fight against other threats.” Calmly, she picked up the ball from the floor. “Now,” she said, “shall we try again?”

\---

They truly dragged him back to his cell the second time. His wrists hurt from where he’d strained against the straps that had held him down, his legs felt like jelly, and his head throbbed painfully in time with his heartbeat, which was still rapid. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. His hair was falling out of Margot’s hair tie, but he didn’t care—he didn’t have the energy to move, let along bother with his hair. So, he let the orderlies throw him on the cot and leave him there.

The tests had gone on for hours. Again and again, Cisco had been asked to name where objects were in the building, to describe what he saw to Dr. Perlemann and others who moved in and out of the room. They asked him to recall events he’d never witnessed, describe things he’d never seen, relay messages and pictures they hid from his view. They pushed harder and harder for him to answer, and he fought harder and harder to remain silent.

He didn’t have the answers for them, but he didn’t tell them that. They thought he was psychic, so he let them think he was a stubborn psychic.

The things he did see, though, when they pressed random objects into his hands, were terrible. Flashes of a screaming, crying Margot, of another young man fighting off Eiling and an orderly with his fists and a pitiable force field, a teenager praying alone in a cell, begging God to save her. He wondered how many metahumans they were holding. He wondered if any of them were still alive. He hoped. Maybe they had just moved Margot to a different room? Maybe they would give him a new room, too, and some new, poor, scared meta would be brought in to the sight of two sets of hatch marks covering the wall.

But, no—he wasn’t going to be around long enough to move. Barry would rescue him. Joe would have definitely noticed he was missing by now, and would have called in The Flash to help with the search. They would have found evidence, maybe tapped into security feeds. They were still coming, he just had to hold on.

It was a long time before he gathered the strength to reach under the mattress for Margot’s earring. His vision flashed blue, but all he saw was her sobbing again, as they dragged her down the hall, towards the dark room, before the vision ended. Cisco held the earring tighter in his trembling grip, before he carefully carved a new hatch marks on the wall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q. Why does Cisco know so much about Morse code?   
> A. Why does Barry know so much about POW tap codes? Why do I know so much about the lawsuit regarding Dole and Chiquita's interactions with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia? Why does anyone know anything? 
> 
> Q. Why is this chapter so short?   
> A. Because I am not the writer I would like to think I am. 
> 
> Q. Can I suggest a prompt or idea for a story?   
> A. You can! I may not get to or be able to write everyone, but, honestly, I'm bored and I love a challenge. 
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He was out of wet wipes.

It should have simple thing, but no one had come into his cell in almost two days and the wet wipes were gone. He felt hungry, but that feeling was getting familiar after eating one meal a day for over two weeks. Mostly, he felt grimy, sweaty, dirty. He tried to scrape it off his skin with his nails, leaving pale marks up his arms and neck and chest. His oily, stringy hair he pulled back in a ponytail, feeling frustrated at the greasiness of it when he ran his fingers through it, fighting the knots. It made him want to crawl out of his skin, slough off the filth and blood the prison had given him. All he wanted was some wet wipes, or the chance to take a proper shower. Anything to wash the feel of the orderlies hands of his arms, the slippery feeling of Eiling’s voice from his spine, and sharp feeling of Dr. Perlemann’s hands on his when she pressed the stupid ball into his hand, over and over and over.

There were thirty-two hatch marches next to his name now. He’d spent three straight days in the dark room, hooked up to IVs and catheters, strapped to a table, unable to move. The first day he made it his goal to make sure they knew how un-fucking-impressed he was with his treatment; he screamed at the people he was sure were monitoring him, spitting out curses in English, Spanish, a bit of high school German. This was his body! They couldn’t do this! They were his powers! They couldn’t control them! He wasn’t theirs to manipulate, to abuse. Needless to say, they didn’t listen—Francisco Juan Ramon was property of the US Government.

They forced him to see things he didn’t want to see. His vision was blue for longer periods now. He saw them dragging Margot through the dim corridors. He saw them dragging him through the dim corridors. His head pounded and he spent days feeling dizzy and nauseous. He curled up on the bed, trembling, too scared to touch any of Margot’s things. He’d had his share of visions for the time being.

He just wanted to go home. Who was paying his rent? Who was feeding his fish? He’d promised his mother he’d come to Rigoberto and Jesus’s graduation party—had they noticed when he hadn’t shown up? Were they calling him and leaving messages while Joe and the police promised they were doing all they could? Were they doing all they could? Or was Joe too busy with post-singularity business? Was Barry fighting metahumans, and saving the city? And was Caitlin worried about him? She used to text him to remind him to take his vitamins and to not eat so much candy—how many texts had she sent? Or had she given up sending them?

He wanted to eat candy. Listen to music. Watch old _Cantinflas_ movies. Roll his eyes at Caitlin’s nagging. He wanted someone to talk to who wasn’t hurting him.

God, he just wanted to feel clean.

Why wouldn’t they just give him wet wipes?

\---

The next time Dr. Perlemann and the orderlies came, he let them take blood without putting up a fight. He asked for food. He asked for something to wash with.

“Maybe,” Dr. Perlemann said. “We’ll see.”

\---

Cisco was sure he was dreaming, or hallucinating. It had been over a month and there’d been no sign that anyone else—any other _metahumans_ —was currently in the building. But there it was, tapping, echoing down the vents. Suddenly, he was very thankful he and Barry had spent that month studying various codes and ciphers “just in case”, even if all they ever used it for was communicating things so Caitlin couldn’t hear. Because he recognized the taps.

Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash. Dash. Dash. Dot. Dot. Dot.

“No way,” he mumbled, pulling himself forward on his stomach to put an ear against the cold metal of the grate. “No way.”

But it was true—someone was sending an SOS.

Cautiously, he tapped back. _Here_.

There was a long pause and Cisco started to feel his chest tighten in fear and panic. Maybe he hadn’t heard anything at all. Maybe he was truly hallucinating. There’d been no taps. There were no other people. No one was looking for him. Right as his breathing started to shorten more, there was a reply. _Who_ , said the taps.

_Cisco_.

There was a long pause. Then: _Kamal_.  Cisco started to reply when the taps began again. _Meta_. 

Cisco wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a question or not, but he echoed Kamal’s taps. _Meta_. 

_Can heal people,_ Kamal said. 

_Visions,_ Cisco replied. 

They continued to tap into the night. Cisco felt almost dizzy with happiness. He wasn’t alone anymore. Somewhere, in some other part of the facility was another meta. There was hope, still, echoing down the vent system of his prison in fumbled Morse code. Kamal described his capture in short bursts— _left mosque, got nabbed_ —while Cisco took his time describing his own capture, careful not to mention his connection with STAR Labs or the Flash. He didn’t even discuss his fear, his anxiety that he would never be found. 

He woke up to tapping, too. It was Kamal wishing him good morning. They tapped back and forth about how hungry they were, how much they missed home. He sat on the cot, tapping and pinching himself, leaving bruises just to make sure it was real. The taps were real. Kamal was _real_. 

He almost didn’t hear the heavy steps over the orderlies until Mike thrust open the door. “Good morning, Mr. Ramon.” 

“Fuck you, Mike,” Cisco snapped, scooting farther back on the little cot, his back pressed against the hatch marks on the wall. They felt almost hot against the thin fabric of his shirt. But he stayed still, wary as Mike approached, stomping across the floor and snatching hold of his arm with the speed of a viper. Cisco’s vision rushed to blue, and he was trapped in a vision of Margot, screaming, jerking out of it only with the sharp pain of Mike strapping him to the MRI machine.

The straps that held him to the table of the MRI machine kept his head from moving, so when the table slid with a mechanical whir into the body of the machine, he started to panic. The ceiling of the MRI was only inches above his nose and the room around him was dark. He felt that old familiar need to place a hand over his chest to protect that rapidly beating, treacherous heart of his; he jerked at the straps at his wrists but they were tight and held him still as the MRI’s noisy mechanical clanking grew louder. 

As the whirring and clanking of the MRI rose in volume, he felt his breath getting shorter. He wanted to cover his heart, his ears, but the stupid straps were stopping him, so, instead, he tried to sing “La Gozadera” to himself. He was starting to forget the words. Like he was pretty sure he’d forgotten what it was like to not feel afraid all the time.

\---

There were thirty-two hatch marks on the wall when they brought him food again. He shoved the tasteless, undercooked chicken in his mouth, swallowing fat chunks without chewing, and desperately drinking the water they brought him to stop from choking. His hands were shaking, and didn’t stop shaking even after he ate. The new package of wet wipes they threw into the room after the food felt like a gift from God. He stripped without shame, scrubbing at his skin from top of his hair down to the bottom of his feet, and using the left over drinking water to rinse the soap and alcohol mixture out of his hair. The dirty grey scrubs he’d been wearing since waking up there were balled up and soaked in the last of the water before he rang them out over the toilet and hung them over the edge of the bed. He didn’t care if anyone peeped into his room—no, not his room, his _cell_ —now. 

_Hungry_ , he tapped to Kamal. 

_Same_ , Kamal replied.

He went to bed, clutching Margot’s earring, and dreamed of her dreams.

\--- 

At forty hatch marks, they dragged him back to the dark room and strapped down to the table. Cisco felt week and dizzy. They hadn’t fed him the night before, and he was so hungry and tired. Kamal had barely managed to tap him a quiet ‘good morning’ before the orderlies burst in. The straps felt familiar now. They had done multiple MRIs, as if they were searching for something, some secret locked in his brain. 

But there was no MRI this time. A needle slid into his arm and he felt the cool rush of a sedative pump through his veins. Oh God, what were they doing? “Wha--what…?” Something hard and plastic was shoved into his mouth, between his teeth and he had the sudden terrifying realization that it was a bite guard. Cisco was not stupid; he’d seen _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ \--he knew what came next. His heart started to hammer, fighting against the effects of the sedative as Dr. Perlemann and the orderlies moves around him, placing ECG sensors across his chest, an IV in his arm, a oxygen meter on his finger, a blood pressure cuff on his leg. He tried to shift away from them, but was trapped by the straps and the sedatives. This was happening. 

His eyes darted toward the door. He found himself waiting for Barry to come racing in and save him. But the door didn’t open. 

“Ready to begin, doctor,” said Mike the orderly. 

He felt the rubber electrodes settle against his temples. Wasn’t he supposed to be asleep for this? Why wasn’t he asleep? He tried to beg, but the bite guard muffled his pleas, and an orderly placed a gloved hand on his chin, holding his jaw closed and the guard in place.

“Begin,” said Dr. Perlemann. The electric current that sang through Cisco’s body made every muscle tense, his jaw clench painfully, nerve endings to seemingly snap and sizzle. So, this is what it feels like to be struck by lightening.

\--- 

For days all Cisco could do was crawl from his bed to the toilet to vomit. His head pounded, his jaw ached, and nausea washed over him in waves. He held Margot’s earring more and more, trying to find out what happened to her, and where she had gone. All he saw was nightmares as they poked and prodded at her. It made his stomach roll to see images of her screaming, to feel her screaming from his own mouth. In the visions, she was always in pain.

\--- 

At forty-six hatch marks they tried the electroconvulsive therapy again. 

At fifty hatch marks they asked him to find an object in the building. He did, and for one blissful week they fed him every day and left him alone. 

At sixty hatch marks they did another round of electroconvulsive therapy, and again at sixty-six hatch marks. 

At seventy-two days, Cisco forced himself out of bed, shaking from the constant fasting and the nausea from the shock therapies. It took him five tries before he managed to upend the cot he slept in. Abandoning the mattress on the dirty floor, he balanced the bedframe on the metal headboard. Patiently, he twisted and knotted the bedsheet and tied one end to the footboard of the upended bed that now almost brushed the ceiling of his cell. His hands started shaking more as he twisted the other end of the bedsheets into a small noose. 

He wasn’t going to make it out alive. It had been over two month and Barry wasn’t coming. Joe wasn’t coming. Caitlin wasn’t coming. No one was going to find him. He was too weak to fight his way out. He was running out of options, out of things he could control. 

Cisco Ramon didn’t think of himself as a quitter, but every man had this limits. He just didn’t want to be in pain anymore. 

Carefully, he looped the noose around his neck, tapped a quick goodbye to Kamal, drew a steady breath and then let his knees cave out from under him. It took all his willpower to not stand back up again, to not fight against the feeling of his throat constricting, of the vision tunneling and his lungs desperately trying to pull in air. When his vision tunneled and went black, he couldn’t help but feel a brief thrill of success. And then he felt nothing at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q. There's some unanswered questions here. Like why--  
> A. Shhhh. Never you mind. Don't worry your pretty little head. 
> 
> Q. Why did you stop talking about your deep, deep love "La Gozadera"?  
> A. One word: "Hamilton". Nothing else exists but "Hamilton". 
> 
> Q. What happens next?  
> A. *shrugs*  
> ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cisco blinked. His eyelids felt heavy and gummy with sleep. Plastic rubbed against his lips--the T-piece of an intubation tube--and when he moved his head slightly, he could feel the tube inside him. He thought he should maybe panic about that, but his brain felt foggy and slow. His wrists were strapped down to a make-shift hospital bed, but he didn’t panic about that either. The oxygen machine hissed and pumped to his right, and to his left sat a young man, his head pillowed on his arm, his hand reached towards Cisco’s hand, their fingertips mere centimeters apart.

The young man had a long, thin face, and a long, thin nose to match. His normally brown skin was pale. His black, curly hair looked greasy. He was blinking awake, and when he saw Cisco, he smiled. “Hey, you’re awake,” he said, sounded groggy and tired. “I’ve been working all night trying to get you plus five health.” He continued to smile gently as Cisco stared stupidly at this new person. “It’s Kamal, man. I’m Kamal.”

And then he took Cisco’s hand. The world washed out to blue. Cisco saw Dr. Perlemann racing around, orchestrating the endotracheal intubation, placing IVs, as Mike the orderly escorted Kamal into the room and forced him into the chair. “We’re in need of your services, Mr. Parwaz,” Dr. Perlemann said. She nodded to Cisco’s body on the table. “Save him.”

Mutely, Kamal nodded, and took hold of Cisco’s hand.

When Cisco finally jerked out of the vision, he was already crying, choking on the intubation tube as he sobbed, and sickly, green lines crawled up Kamal’s hand as he tried to pull the pain away from Cisco’s body.

\---

The endotracheal tube had been removed quickly after he woke up, and Dr. Perlemann let him out of the straps when she realized he was too weak and uncoordinated to take swipes at any of the orderlies like he wanted to. They kept Kamal by his side, only allowing him to leave to eat or use the bathroom. Cisco’s food and bathroom trips were all completed through tubes and IVs traveling in and out of his body. He felt too exhausted to truly feel humiliated or angry. He felt tired now. Only tired, and sick, and nauseous. So, he let them run what tests they wanted and answered their questions truthfully. He didn’t think of Margot, and he _definitely_ didn’t think of his family, or Barry, or Caitlin, or Joe. He found the ball in the other room that he saw in his forced vision, describing the room to their satisfaction so they’d believe him and leave him alone.

Kamal helped him remove the catheter. He helped him sit up, and then stand up, and take his first few steps around across the room, careful not to take Cisco’s hand. “Good job, man,” Kamal encouraged. “You’re doing great. Keep going.”

Cisco sat down and shook his head no.

“You can’t give up, dude,” Kamal said. Scoffing, Cisco gave an exaggerated nod, as if to say _oh, yes I can._ He could be obstinate. So incredibly stubborn. It had driven Caitlin crazy sometimes. But, no, he wasn’t thinking about Caitlin anymore. So, he nodded harder: _yes, yes, yes._ He wanted to give up. He didn’t want to be alive anymore, now voiceless, his limbs still uncoordinated, his memory fuzzy. He wanted...he struggled to find the word.And ending? Peace? The ability to surrender? No. That wasn’t right. Relief--that was the word--he wanted relief.

Kamal chewed his lip thoughtfully. His gaze flitted around the room, as if he too was still waiting for someone to come rescue him. “I...I don’t know what you believe, Cisco, but I grew up Muslim. I was taught that Allah always provides relief from difficulty. That He was merciful. But you can’t give up--that’s not the path to relief.”

Cisco shook his head. Kamal didn’t know. He had been imprisoned far less time than he had. Kamal hadn’t been pushed, and poked, and prodded, and electrocuted while still half awake and panicking, flitting between reality, visions, and flashbacks of his alternate timeline death in a nightmarish cycle. _Kamal didn’t know._

“I have healing powers,” Kamal said, as if reading his mind. “You think they’ve been good to me here? They’ve cut me, and burnt me, taken a million tissue samples. They made me touch this dead girl they had in a drawer in the basement. They wanted to see if I could bring her back to life. I told them I couldn’t--that it didn’t work like that--but they made me touch her anyway. She was the coldest person I’ve ever touched. Her skin felt wrong, and it was all grey. We’ve both suffered. But I believe Allah will deliver us. We’re gonna get out of this. I have to believe that.”

Cisco felt nauseous, and tired. He didn’t believe that. He didn’t even believe in God. And the things he did believe in--the _people_ he believed in--well, again, he wasn’t going to think about them anymore.

\---

It was eighty days into his imprisonment when they finally let Cisco go back to his own cell. Another bed had been crammed into the tiny space to allow for Kamal to stay with him. Possibly to stop him from trying to kill himself again, but mostly to continue to help heal him.

He’d lost some fine motor function, so Kamal made the hatch marks on the wall for him, taking Margot’s earring respectfully, holding it like a treasured object as he used the peg’s sharp end to scrape new marks into the cell’s paint. “Did you know her?” he asked, studying Margot’s name and the little star next to her name. Cisco shrugged. He hadn’t known her, personally, but he knew her fear and pain intimately, like it was his own. “I hope she got out,” Kamal added.

Cisco fiddled with her hair tie uncomfortable, pulling the green elastic out of his hair and twisting it around his fingers, stretching it absentmindedly.

Kamal smiled encouragingly. “Dude,” he said, nodding at Cisco’s hand. “That’s some good dexterity for someone who probably has brain damage.”

Glaring, Cisco flipped him off, which made Kamal laugh and Cisco more angry. They were trapped, held against their will, being poked and prodded and experimented on--what right did Kamal had to laugh? It wasn’t funny.

“It is funny, dude,” Kamal said, seemingly reading his thoughts. If Cisco hadn’t seen Kamal’s powers to heal first hand, he might have started to suspect him as a psychic or something. “In a dark way, anyway. And you’re about as threatening as a kitten when you glare.”

Cisco tried to stretch the hair tie out wide to shoot it at Kamal. A panicked, almost inhuman sound left his mouth as the elastic snapped, launching the hair tie a pathetic few feet across the room where it dropped to the dirty cell floor. Immediately, Cisco dropped to his knees, scooping up the green hair tie in his shaking hands; his breath came in short gasps, his heart started to hammer, and his vision started to fog with tears. He didn’t know why he was panicking, he didn’t know why he was crying. It was just a hair tie. A silly hair tie that wasn’t even his. Kamal suddenly appeared kneeling in front of him. “Hey, hey, dude, it’s okay, we can fix this. Here, I’ll fix it.”

His fingers brushed against the palm Cisco’s trembling hand and the world once again washed away to the now-familiar blue tint of his visions. He was Kamal this time, standing trembling in the basement, eyes locked at a set of bare feet that poked out from under a plastic-like sheet. The toes were painted a bright green, and a tag tied to one toe read in crisp, typewritten font _Eriksson, M_. Kamal’s eyes flicked upward as someone pulled back the sheeting on the body. A young woman lay on a slab, eyes closed, face grey and still. Freckles dotted her pale skin, a birthmark on her arm met and mingled with the bruises there, and the tell-tale Y-shaped incision on her chest suggested that an autopsy had already been completed. Her red hair had been shaved on one side, where another incision had been made and stitched together again, but she was still recognizable. Margot did not look beautiful. She did not look like a girl who had maybe done yoga in the morning and gone backpacking with her dog on the weekends. She did not look like a girl who had once tied her hair back with a green hair tie. She barely looked like a girl. She just looked dead.

The vision ended abruptly, catapulting Cisco back to the present. He gasped, barely recognizing his surroundings. Kamal was in his space, ducking to catch Cisco’s gaze as he bent double. “It’s okay, dude, I got you. I got you,” Kamal insisted. He put the hair tie--now knotted back into one usable elastic loop--and patiently coached Cisco in taking deep breaths. In and out. In and out.

\---

At eighty-two days, Kamal finally got the last of the bruising on Cisco’s throat to fade away.

At eighty-six days, Cisco managed to say his first words since his attempted suicide. They were “fuck you, Parwaz.” Kamal had laughed for ages.

At eighty-nine days, Kamal helped Cisco wash his hair with the leftover wet wipe, because Cisco’s hands shook still, his grip weak, his coordination weaker.

At ninety-three days, Cisco braided his own hair with minimal mistakes.

At ninety-seven days, Dr. Perlemann came back.

“Mr. Ramon, come with me,” she ordered.

Mike the orderly and two others swept into the room, grabbing hold of him to pull him up. He struggled to get his feet under him, to walk with them, to fight them. He _did not_ want to go with them. He _did not_ want to leave Kamal and his relentlessly hopeful presence. He would not be experimented on. But Mike was already pulling a syringe from his pocket, ready to sedate him, to yank him to the dark room with its tables and straps. Maybe this time they’d cut his head open, like they’d done to Margot. He dug his bare heels into the floor, clawing to get an arm free, to throw a good punch, to get someone down. Over his shoulder, Kamal was shouting, begging everyone to stop, for him to stop, that they were hurting him, that he was hurting himself. But was not going back to that room.

It happened faster than he could really process. His mouth opened and he screamed at everyone to _stop!_ And they did. A rushing hum, as ferocious as an engine, as a particle accelerator, burst from his chest, his throat, his hands. The orderlies and Dr. Perlemann were thrown backwards. Mike the orderly hit the door frame hard, while Dr. Perlemann was blown back into the hall. Even Kamal had been thrown back, his shoulder slamming into the toilet. Dust floated down where it had shook loose from the lights, settling on the floor. The room was silent.

“Cisco…” gasped Kamal. “What did you do?”

A rush of wind blew Cisco’s hair forward. In panic, he spun around, fist raised to punch this new foe’s lights out, but the figure behind him ducked the blow in a blur of red. “B-Barry?” Cisco gasped.

Barry nodded, eyes wide behind his mask. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Eiling is here,” Cisco said. It was the first thing he could think to say. Not _how did you find me?_ Not _are you real?_

“Knocked him out on the way in,” Barry replied. “Was that earthquake you? Are you okay?” His eyes flicked over Cisco’s shoulder where Kamal was stumbling to his feet, his hand pressed against the hatch mark-covered wall for support. “Are both of you okay?” Cisco shook his head, choking on a sob. Because Barry was here. He was _finally_ here. And Cisco wasn’t okay anymore. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, carefully pulling Cisco close. “Let’s get you home, before these guys wake up, okay?”

Cisco nodded, letting Barry wrap an arm around him, and grab Kamal with the other. He felt exhausted, and, as Barry took off, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip away into unconsciousness.

\---

Here’s how you adjust to normal life after ninety-seven days of waiting to die: you don’t.

Instead, you force yourself to crawl out of bed every morning, or someone knocks on your door and forces you get out of bed, to shower and dress yourself and eat a decent breakfast. People smile at you with incredibly sympathy and pity, and fuss until you feel like you’re going to scream, and then you have a panic attack. Cisco’s first panic attack occurred in the safety of his own apartment, after he’d practically shoved Caitlin out the door, after Joe and Barry and Iris had all texted him asking if he needed anything, reminding him he was always there for him, telling him they were so glad he was back. He’d listened to Caitlin linger outside the door of his apartment, his heart hammering in his chest, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. He waited until he heard her walk away before he collapsed to the floor, clutching his hands over his heart and trying to force himself to breathe evenly.

The second panic attack occurred at STAR Labs. He was sitting on the medical bay’s small bed, letting Caitlin run her tests. He felt anxious and fidgety, the feeling of being poked and prodded now too well connected with pain, but Caitlin was careful to talk to him the entire time, explain what she was doing even though they both knew he understand all the procedures. Barry was out patrolling, occasionally radioing in to announce he’d saved a cat from a tree or to ask how he was doing; Joe sat on the bed next to him, fatherly and silent, not commenting about Cisco holding his hand tightly like he was a little kid instead of a grown-ass man. “Y’know, Bar used to be afraid of the doctor’s, too,” Joe said, trying to comfort him. Cisco smiled politely, but it wasn’t a comfort--he wasn’t afraid of doctors, he was afraid of torture, and those things were now deeply entwined in his mind. It wasn’t until Caitlin asked him to “provide some samples” that he realized how deep that connection went.

In an instant, he was back in his cell, in the dark room, trapped in the MRI machine, trapped in a vision. Dr. Perlemann loomed over him, Eiling smiled smugly, and they held syringes and scalpels in their hands like they were hideous talons. It wasn’t so much a flashback as a nightmarish hallucination, and it took three minutes of Caitlin and Joe screaming his name, of Barry rushing in to lean into his line of sight to get the nightmare to stop. And then he was bending double, hands scrabbling at his chest as he tried to breathe. He felt Joe grab hold of his chin to try and force him to look his way--and he wrenched himself away. He wanted them to get away. He wanted them to stop touching them, to step back, to get away! “Get away!”

“C’mon, Cisco,” Joe pleaded, “Look at me. You gotta calm down, bud.”

He couldn’t calm down. How could he calm down? They were all there and they were so close and he wanted it to stop, for it to be over. There was a rush of wind, and a moment later Barry was back, dropping Kamal onto his feet in front of him. He looked like Barry had pulled him straight from a mosque event--his white taqiyah matched his ironed dress shirt and his feet were still bare, like Barry hadn’t even giving him time to put his shoes back on. “Cisco?” Kamal said softly. “It’s me, Kamal. We’re safe, dude. You’re safe. No one is trying to hurt you.”

It took exactly twenty-eight minutes for his breathing to even out. And then he cried. Like a baby, his face hot with embarrassment as his friends quietly cleared the room, leaving him alone with Kamal. He caught a glimpse of Caitlin as she closed the door after him, she looked guilty and sad, tears still running down her face, and he immediately felt ashamed for making her cry.

“This is so stupid,” he said, swiping at his own tears.

“What started it?” Kamal asked. When Cisco shrugged, not quite ready to talk about it, Kamal only nodded. “Last night it was my dad picking up a bread knife. That was it. He was just getting a bread knife. We were having spaghetti and garlic bread and he was gonna cut me a slice and then suddenly I was back there with Perlemann and Eiling. So, I get it. And it’s not stupid.”

Cisco huffed out a dry, humorless laugh.

They sat in silence for a long time before Kamal suddenly jerked upright. “Oh, here!” Rifling for a moment inside his pocket. Kamal presented the green hair tie and the earring to him.

Cisco stared at the objects in his hands, eyes welling with tears all over again. He hadn’t thought he would see them again after Barry rushed him out of the cell he was kept in. There was no flash of blue when he wrapped his fingers around them, only a familiar feeling of fear and loss. Another wave of shame washed over him. “I didn’t even think to ask about her body…”

“She’s safe,” Kamal assured him. “Barry told me she was safe. Joe had her brought to the police morgue. They’re trying to track down her family now.”

Silently, Cisco nodded, toying with the green hair tie, careful not to stretch it or damage it. The star earring’s post had dulled and was still flecked with tiny bits of paint from where they’d use it to count the days on the wall. Cisco didn’t know why he felt like they were the most precious objects, but the pricelessness of them made them feel heavy in his palm.

“My parents want to have you over for dinner,” Kamal said, breaking the silence once again. “They want to say thank you to you, since they can’t quite say thank you to the Flash. Cuz, I mean, not to get corny, but you saved me, dude.”

Cisco smiled. “So corny.”

\---

Joe informed everyone that Margot’s mother picked up the body on a Wednesday. They hadn’t been able to tell her what happened. Just that it was homicide and it was an ongoing investigation.

Cisco had his third panic attack that day, and no one tried him make him get out of bed the next morning. Instead, Caitlin let herself into his apartment and brought him tea and toast in bed. Later, she held his hair back as he vomited into the toilet and talked him back out of three different flashback-panic attack combos with practiced calm.

He still flinched when she touched him, but she never said anything about it.

“When will this stop?” he asked her. “I want it to stop.”

She just smiled sadly at him, and stroked his hair.

\---

Everyone kept telling him that he’d done nothing wrong, that what had happened to him and Kamal and Margot was horrible and wrong. That he just needed time. Or he needed closure. That they were there for him.

At night, though, he still held tightly to Margot’s tiny belongings. Kamal had said that Cisco had saved him. And, in a way, Kamal had saved Cisco. But Margot had given him something, too. He still wasn’t sure what it was. It hadn’t been hope. It had been more like a connection to another human, someone who wasn’t a villain in his story, who wasn’t going to hurt him. She had been through what he had been through, died because of it. Margot’s hope, her counting the days on the wall, her fighting against her captors had provided him an escape and someone to share a connection with. It hadn’t been a pleasant escape, but it had become wildly important to his survival without Cisco even realizing it. Margot had kept him alive just as much as Kamal had.

It was because of this that he decided to ignore Joe’s orders to lie low, recuperate, and not worry about the investigation into Eiling’s dealings.

The drive to Margot’s mother’s house was astonishingly short. Barry and Kamal decided to wait for him in the car while he let himself in the front gate of a suburban home not too far from the Wests’ house. The gate had seen better days, but had been recently painted, and had a sign hanging on it that said “Beware of Cat” in bold, orange letters. The cat, it turned out, was a fluffy and friendly and wound itself around Cisco’s legs a few times, trilling out squeaky meows, as he made his way through the overgrown backyard-turned-vegetable garden to the front door. Someone has taped a small sign over the doorbell that read “Doorbell broken. Please knock loudly”. Nervously, he tapped on the door instead, almost hoping that no one would hear. Instead, a teenager’s voice on the other side of the door shouted, “Mom, someone’s at the door!”

He waited, nervously, looked back at Barry and Kamal once, who both gave him a thumbs up. His back was still turned when the door was flung open and a woman stared at him curiously, a basket of laundry on her hip. “Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

She looked like Margot. Her hair was thick and red, going grey around the ears and in long, striped patches. She’d twisted it into a bun on top of her head, and secured it with a colorful elastic hair tie. She had no makeup on, and Cisco noticed she looked incredibly tired and thin. He also noticed that her shirt was green, and covered in a star pattern and his stomach lurched.

It took a few times before he managed to swallow the panic and stutter, “A-are you Mrs. Eriksson? Margot’s mother?”

Her demeanor changed immediately. “You knew my Margot?”

Nervously, he held out his hands, offering her the old, green hair tie and the star earring. It took a moment before he gathered up the nerve to speak. “Your daughter was a metahuman. Like me. A few months ago, a general with the US military went rogue. He kidnapped me to study metahumans. They put me in a room where your daughter had been held before me.” Mrs. Eriksson’s hands trembled as she took the items from him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I have visions. I saw ones of her a lot.She--” He struggled to find the right words to express what he felt about Margot, about the horrible things she’d experienced, in the end he settled on something simple: “She was very brave. Braver than me.”

Abruptly, Mrs. Eriksson dropped her laundry basket and pulled him into a hug; she wrapped her freckled arms around him, and squeezed like only mothers can--fierce and loving all at once. He found himself sobbing hysterically into some poor woman’s shoulder. Her hands cupped his face, wiped away the tears there. “Poor thing.” she cooed. “You poor, poor thing. I’m so sorry for what you went through.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, struggling for words.”I couldn’t save your daughter.”

Mrs. Eriksson held him sternly at arm’s length. She was still crying when she asked, “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Cisco Ramon,” he hiccuped.

“Cisco, thank you.” He started to argue, but she cut him off. “No. I mean it. Thank you. You brought her home,” she replied. “That’s enough.” She looked over his shoulder at Barry and Kamal waiting in the car. “Do you and your friends want to come inside?”

Politely, Cisco nodded.

\---

That night, he took out of notebook and made a single hatch mark underneath where he’d carefully printed his name in the top left hand corner. Day one of recovery, he thought to himself. Afterward he allowed himself to think of Barry, and Caitlin, and Iris, and Joe, and Kamal, and even Mrs. Eriksson. He let himself think about where he’d be after ninety-seven days, and, for the first time in a long time, felt hopeful.

When he felt asleep that night, his hands empty of Margot’s things, he had no nightmares.


End file.
